Posted 5 years ago on May 14, 2012, 1:25 a.m. EST by eeee
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Thanks for reading.

After the establishment of the U.S. Constitution over the Articles of Confederation as the legal authority of the U.S. back in 1789, many common citizens were concerned with the size of electoral districts. One of the greatest concerns for people from all walks of life—so people like me and you—was that they were concerned with representative district sizes. And today this is still a huge issue with the amount of gerrymanding that goes on, and the way that ‘safe’ districts and seats are created.

So considering that this was one of the most contentions issues, congress set out to rectify that, and other outstanding grievances with the Bill of Rights. Most of us today know it as the first Ten Amendments of the Constitution, but what most people don’t know are that 12 amendments were actually passed by congress. One is what is now the 27th amendment of the Constitution—which was ratified by the needed 38 states in 1992; 202 years after it passed through congress. The other amendment which passed Congress, but was never ratified by the needed states was what is going to help us save our country from a bunch of greedy politicians: Article the First

"After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons."
And as we saw with the enforcing into law of the 27th Amendment, so will this Amendment. What this amendment states is that congressional representatives shall never represent more than 50,000 people—Which would mean that congress would grow to more than 6,000 members.
Now why is will work:

You are on this forum. You know how broken the system is.

I believe that this most likely will strip away an entire level of government that really does not need to be there. With congress being so large, much of the power will get defused and we will start having to acknowledge that we are not a nation of Red and Blue—we are an incredible diverse group of people that have an incredible range of values that all need to be represented. We should no longer have to default into such simple categories to allow for government to occur.

This will cause for a cascade of government reform due to the influx of many new representatives who would like to make a difference politically for their community, but never thought it could be done before. With one person for every 50,000 people, there is going to be a hell of a lot more diversity than ever before in congress. A true representation of the 99%.

Pressing state legislatures, particularly when we have an entire army of people who can put pressure on these small-time politicians, will be much easier than congress people.

We are already half way there! This has already passed Congress, so NO CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL IS NEEDED and now it just needs to be ratified by 27 luck states. I’m sure NYC can put some pressure on your state legislatures to have NY be the first state to ratify Article the First in the 21st century.

This would empower state legislatures against federal government that interlopes into state affairs too much. When arguing with state representatives, you are really telling them to more or less level the playing field with the Feds, something I would hope they would be happy to try.

No time limit. We can focus our efforts to go state by state knocking this thing out as long as it take. And as for states that we cannot win over on this. Fine, we can just skip on to the next one, because we only need 27 states to ratify this to make it law.

Even if the government finds some way to ‘nullify’ the law (as they did with the 27th amendment, thank you speaker of the house), it will have to show clearly how the government chooses to outright ignore the law of the land. Which at that point, we can all hop on to plan B with enthusiasm.

This is a way to fight them with fire. If we get an AMENDMENT not even a normal bill, but an amendment to the Constitution that can break their little nepotistic system of greed, it will deliver a very strong statement in addition to ushering in a new era of politics in this country.

To all of the naysayers who think this is too extreme or are worried about how the government will work upon the passage of this amendment, I ask you what is there to lose other than our chains? It is time to end this bullshit excuse for demockracy and to build something truly great. Real democracy, real freedom, and a real future.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. So let it be known that we here highly resolve that those who have died crying liberty shall not have died in vain—that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

3 Comments

I support this fully. At the time that the Constitution was first written, the current delegation of Congresspeople worked. But with America this large and diverse, this is a much better way to have Congress more adequately represent Americans from all walks of life. So, what do we have to do to get this passed?

While I'm not sure I personally agree with parliamentarianism period, I'll still add an explanatory note: the first bills to seriously limit the congress date from late 19th to early 20th century, effectively reducing the number elected in proportion to the whole population drastically - until 1901 the US grew from 3 to 70 millions, with popular representation never really catching up after universal suffrage was slowly adopted (abolition of property requirements, of slavery, female suffrage)